Only works with new, Keurig-branded cups. No temperature control. Splashes a bit when brewing.

Bottom Line

The Keurig 2.0 K500 won't work with your old K-Cups, but it can brew a single cup or carafe, making it a good coffee maker for anyone that likes to entertain.

A nice, warm cup of coffee is a great way to wake up in the morning. It's also a great signal for guests to start packing at the end of a dinner party. The problem is, with so many single cup brewers making themselves at home on kitchen counters, brewing enough coffee for everyone sometimes seems like it can last as long as dinner itself.

Keurig Green Mountain, the company that arguably started the single-serve coffee brewer boom, found itself in an interesting situation when its K-Cup patent expired back in 2012, as that made way for a ton of low-cost, third-party cups to flood the market. So the company went back to the drawing board and ultimately introduced Keurig 2.0. The $189.99 K500 is the first coffee maker in the new Keurig 2.0 series, and it does something no other Keurig can—brew enough coffee for more than one person at a time. That might not sound like a huge innovation, but it can make a world of difference the next time you're getting ready to serve the dessert course. The K500 has some problems—particularly that it won't work with any of your old K-Cups—but it's a good brewer for anyone that likes to entertain.

Pricing, Models, and K-Cup CompatibilityI reviewed the K500, which is Keurig's highest-end Keurig 2.0 model. The company also offers the K300 ($139.99) and the K400 ($159.99). The K300 has a smaller 60-ounce water reservoir, lacks a programmable clock, hot water on demand, and features a monochrome touch display. The K400, meanwhile, has a smaller 70-ounce water reservoir and lacks hot water on demand. Keurig also sells these models in K350, K450, and K550 variants, which each include a variety of K-Cup and K-Carafe packs for an additional $10.

One very important thing to keep in mind: Keurig 2.0 will not work with any of your old K-Cups. So if you like to brew exotic roasts in a reusable cup, or you've been stockpiling boxes of cups from Costco, you don't want to get rid of your old brewer just yet. New, compatible cups are marked by a circular ring on top, around the brand logo that tells you what kind of cup it is. The brewer reads this information, and lets you get down to brewing. If you place an old cup in the machine, you'll get an error message telling you the pack isn't designed for the brewer, and to try "one of the hundreds of packs with the Keurig logo." That said, the company says the brewer will work with existing Vue packs.

Design and SetupThe design of the K500 doesn't veer far from Keurig's usual formula. It looks very much similar to the Platinum Plus Brewing System, the main difference being a 2.75-inch color touch screen on the outside of the pack holder. The screen itself doesn't look particularly high-res, and colors are less than vibrant, but it's responsive to the touch. I'll focus more on the display in the performance section below.

The brewer is made from different shades of black and gray plastic, with some silver trim around the top. There's a removable 80-ounce water reservoir to the left, with a flip-top lid that makes it easier to fill up in the sink. The removable base doubles as a drip tray that can accumulate up to 8 ounces of overflow. I didn't experience much of that, but the K500 does tend to splash a bit when brewing—especially single cups. The rim on my mug would often get spattered with coffee, and there's about a 2-inch splash zone around the drip tray, so be mindful where you place the brewer. At just over 12 inches tall, and nearly as deep and as wide, also keep in mind the K500 occupies a decent amount of counter real estate.

Setting up the K500 is really just a matter of plugging it in and entering the time. You'll have to fill the reservoir tank and run a cleansing brew of hot water, which the machine will instruct you to do. After that, all you have to do is put a K-Cup or K-Carafe in the pack holder, close the lid, and select how you want it to brew.

Performance and ConclusionsIf you've ever used a Keurig brewer before, using the K500 is basically the same exact process. After putting in a compatible pack and closing the pack holder, the display will automatically populate with brewing choices. For K-Cups, for instance, you can select the number of ounces you wish to brew (in 2-ounce increments from 4 to 10), whether you want the brew to be Strong, and a setting if you're brewing Hot Cocoa/Other.

Keurig claims its new 2.0 technology enables the brewer to recognize the inserted pack and optimize the recommended, customized setting for that particular beverage. This would be a great way for Keurig to set itself apart from the competition, but in practice, it made no discernible difference. For instance, I brewed coffee, tea, iced tea, iced coffee, and hot cocoa using the K500. But no matter the K-Cup, the machine always presents you with the same brewing options. If it can recognize what cup I'm brewing, then why do I have to press a button that tells it Hot Cocoa/Other?

The machine automatically adjusts the temperature when brewing a carafe, from 192 degrees Fahrenheit to 197 degrees. That said, there is no manual temperature control here, as you'll find on some of the previous Keurig brewers.

To test the K500, I brewed a number of different K-Cup and K-Carafe packs. For a regular 8-ounce K-Cup, the K500 took 43 seconds to brew. For a strong cup, that number increased to 1 minute and 15 seconds. K-Carafe brewing options are measured in cups. For a standard 3-4 cup brew, it took 2 minutes and 22 seconds (there's no Strong option for the carafe).

The K500 isn't silent when brewing, but it's undoubtedly quieter than older machines, which is nice. And the carafe feature is a very welcome addition. The K500 comes with a black plastic carafe with a silver handle. In order to brew a carafe, you must remove the drip tray and put the carafe in its place, which fits up against the brewer like a glove. The lid of the carafe is designed to remain on when brewing, which means there's minimal heat loss. The lid felt secure while pouring, and in general, coffee brewed in the carafe tasted comparable with a single serving cup. That said, the PCMag taste testers didn't enjoy the flavor when the carafe was set to brew 4-5 cups, as it felt noticeably watered down. But stick to the default 3-4 cup setting and you should be happy.

The K500 also allows you to brew hot water, either by selecting the setting on the display, or by opening and closing the pack holder. You can brew up to 6 ounces of hot water at a time, though I found that after brewing a cup of coffee, you'll need to discard the first few ounces of water as tends to be quite murky with coffee grinds.

All in all, though, the K500 is great when you want a quick cup (or carafe) of coffee with minimal work. The beverages it brews taste mostly similar to previous models, which is either a good or bad thing depending on how you like your coffee.

The K500 offers a number of additional features, like the ability to set the machine for brewing in high altitude, or provide you with reminders to clean the water filter. You can also program the light color for the reservoir tank, and change the wallpaper on the display. And there's an auto on/off option, as well as an energy saving option, so the machine will automatically turn off when not in use. All of these worked fine in my tests, but they don't add a ton of value.

Keurig 2.0 seems like a logical step in the evolution of single-serve brewers. That said, if you're already satisfied with your current machine, and don't need the ability to brew a carafe, there's little reason to upgrade to the K500. But if you enjoy the controlled simplicity of single-serve brewing, and want the ability to brew a pot of coffee just as easily, the Keurig 2.0 K500 will likely make you happy. You can also save some money on one of the lower-end new models, particularly the K400, which costs $30 less and doesn't sacrifice many features.

About the Author

Alex Colon is the managing editor of PCMag's consumer electronics team. He previously covered mobile technology for PCMag and Gigaom.
Though he does the majority of his reading and writing on various digital displays, Alex still loves to sit down with a good, old-fashioned, paper and ink book in his free time. (Not that there's anything wrong wit... See Full Bio

Keurig 2.0 K500

Keurig 2.0 K500

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